Craftzine.com blog: SF Zine Fest Coverage

SF Zine Fest Coverage

By Arwen O'Reilly

I stopped by the SF zine fest this weekend, and it was a blast! There were definitely a bunch of traditional zines (photocopied comix etc) but a lot of overlap in the Craft and Make space as well. I noticed a lot of zinesters brought along a crafty spouse to share a table with, so there would be a pile of beautifully crafted zines next to some cute felted creatures or great purses made from old pillow cases or notebooks covered with recycled Berkenstock stock.

I was also surprised to see some letterpress zines, some of which were extremely creative. Everyone pointed towards Karen Switzer, of Craftycards.net and the Ker-Bloom zine, which is celebrating its 10th birthday! She's apparently the queen of letterpress and works out of Berkeley and Oakland. Check out her projects at http://www.craftycards.net/projects.

One woman had these great booklets called "typecritters" for different fonts, where she had quite beautiful abstract images on each page that she made just from turning the letters and combining them. Many of the shapes are gorgeous and don't look like they're made from letters at all. See an example here. If the letterpress zines got me thinking about the physical act of laying out words, these great books got me excited about the other possibilities of type.

I loved Dana Steffe's wonderful cards and prints made with a Gocco printer. (For more about this great but now-rare machine, see Save Gocco or our feature on Gocco in the first issue of Craft Magazine, due out next month!) She had a wonderful and whimsical print of a whale full of balloons intended to deter people from releasing balloons into the sky--a really charming way to take on environmental issues. Her website is great, too: http://stillvalleydrive.com.

And I ALSO ran into an old friend of mine from high school who I literally have not seen in 10 years. She's working with another old friend of mine on the School Daze Tour Zine (driving around the country in a bus to various zine conventions). Rachel has this really cool ribbon book: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1778931.

My favorite part, though, were these two women dressed up like girl scouts who run Pod Post , which tries to revive traditional letter-writing and book-making skills. They have a set of merit badges for bookmaking, zine-making and letter-writing and a Mail Art Bento Box, which has all sorts of supplies, goodies, etc for spicing up your letters. They're both heavily involved in bookmaking (at the Center for the Book in SF and repairing books at the Stanford Library) and have totally inspired me at least to start utilizing the USPS again.

Anyway, lots of fun, and a lot of inspiration...

You can see the rest of the photos here. - Link.

Comments

Newest comments listed first.

Posted by: FrancoisVigneault on September 18, 2006 at 10:03 AM

Wow, I'm so glad you had a great time at our event! We are really proud of all the talented folks who came out to show work... Can't wait 'til next year! By the way please say thanks to Peter(?) who dropped of copies of MAKE for our raffle!

Francois V., Family Style + SF Zine Fest

Posted by: PodPost on September 16, 2006 at 2:54 AM

Wow! Thank you Natalie and Arwin for mentioning the two of us here at PodPost! It was really great to meet you at zinefest, and I'm glad you liked our goodies.
--Jennie Pod, PodPost

Subscribe to CRAFT Magazine!

Subscribe today, save 42% and get web access to CRAFT free. CRAFT Digital Edition is available only to subscribers.

$34.95 / 1 year
(4 Quarterly Issues)

Subscribe now

Welcome to the CRAFT Blog! Your daily source for craft projects and inspiration.

CRAFT: Features & More

Fashioning Technology by Suyzi Pakhchyan

Take your craft projects to the next level with "smart" materials where you can create accessories, housewares, and toys that light up, make sounds, or do even more! Available now in the Maker Shed.

CRAFT: The First Year Box Set

In this special limited re-release, all 4 Volumes of Craft's first year are combined in a Special Edition Boxed Collector's Set. Box slip case is included in this set.

CRAFT Newsletter

Sign up for our bi-weekly CRAFT newsletter that covers popular topics from the blog! You can also see the archive of past newsletters.

Natalie Zee Drieu. Natalie Zee Drieu
Senior Editor

Jenny Ryan
Contributing Writer

Michelle Kempner
Tech Craftologist

Rachel Hobson
Maker Faire Austin Crafter

Suggest a Site!

Arwen O'Reilly
Staff Editor

Becky Stern
Craft Technologist

Phillip Torrone
Senior Editor, Makezine.com

Why advertise on CRAFT?
Read what folks are saying about us!

Click here to advertise on CRAFT!

Current Podcast

Learn How To Weave with Paper Index Cards - CRAFT Video Podcast Download the MP4 Video or HD Version | Subscribe to CRAFT in iTunes Join weaver Travis Meinolf of actionweaver.com as he shows you how to make a loom from paper index cards as well as the basics of weaving... More...